Reversible Solid Oxide System Design with Integrated Fossil Assets

With majority of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions stemming from fossil assets and transportation, the U.S. economy is becoming more innovative and flexible in response to environmental and economic challenges and to the demands for clean energy, fuels, and other products. Due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy (such as solar and wind) makes it difficult to balance power generation with grid demand. Thus, hydrogen production and energy storage are essential pieces of enabling high penetration renewable energy portfolio across the U.S. with reversible solid oxide cell systems (RSOC) as a promising and environmentally friendly energy storage option. These systems generate and store hydrogen in the electrolysis mode during periods of renewable energy surplus and can use various fuels (e.g., natural gas, hydrogen) to efficiently generate power in the fuel cell mode at times of energy deficiency. Hydrogen is a versatile fuel and can add value to multiple sectors including transportation/e-mobility (as primary fuel), industrial (e.g., steel and cement manufacturing), and chemical applications (syngas to synthetic fuels). Unlike other fuels, hydrogen requires more integration of the fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy systems; thus, integration is the key to fully realize benefits of hydrogen. Thus, DOE has put forward the Hydrogen Program Plan to address key challenges across the entire hydrogen chain, and collaboration of RSOC technology developers with utilities is imperative for successful commercialization. In this Phase I SBIR project, Nexceris will collaborate with a utility partner to develop a system design for a 100 MW RSOC plant integrated with fossil assets. The proposed system will utilize natural gas as a primary fuel for power generation mode (with hydrogen also being produced), while steam electrolysis will be used to produce hydrogen (stored energy) as a value-added product for industrial, chemical, and E--mobility applications. To increase the fidelity of the RSOC plant a dynamic model will be developed using MATLAB Simulink to simulate the transient operation of the system and validated using data from existing tests and hardware at Nexceris. The goal will be to demonstrate that the RSOC plant designed on this effort will be able to reduce capital costs, which are a current barrier to adoption, while also providing a path to producing hydrogen at $1/kg production target.